Early Crappie

Thu, March 29, 2012

For those of you who have been caught off guard by this early streak of pleasant weather the Crappie are heating up, or maybe on simmer would be a better description. The specs are being caught with a little more consistency for this time of year than usual but a few cold blasts has them stalling a bit too.
Obviously the further South the more they are moving in and starting to feed hard.

Roger Coleman and Josh Brown of Central Illinois got on some nice ones in Missouri the end of last week despite dodging thunder storms.

Josh Hardt of Lexington brought in this dandy slab from the back of the boat the other night, despite having two very skilled and talented fishermen in the front of the boat. The cold front that blew in not only dispersed the Crappie but the once full parking lot at the boat ramp was mostly vacant as well. The Crappie that were active were in 9-10 foot of water and preferred slow and low horizontal retrieve not reacting to the vertical jigging. A few small ones were picked up shallow.

Team Dittbenner consisting of father and son, Mel and Matt seem to always put fish in the boat; I am not convinced they aren’t raising them in their basement in a kiddy pool. These guys are always on Fish, Mushrooms, and Turkey’s. Some guys have all the luck or talent in this case. All kidding aside they had a nice basket of super thick 12” Crappie, outstanding for this time of year.

If you get out in between cold fronts and thunderstorms, don’t be afraid to start shallow as some smaller males may be up there, but don’t overlook deeper water structure and vary your presentations, colors and lures as they can be finicky this time of year.

Be sure to have that new 2012 fishing lic. come April 1 (No Joke) and know what the length and limits are for each lake you are on

Be safe and God bless
Matt Cheever ~ Flatlander

Comments

I’ve been catching them on white road runners not shallow but not deep either really…all i care about is that i’ve been able to catch them! Love this time of year!

Posted by BucknBass84 on March 29

Josh is a real sleeper as a fisherman. He once “stole” a 5# saugeye right out from under my nose on Evergreen one day.

Posted by Thad Hinshaw on March 29

Don Gasaway wrote a good blog on how the side imaging units are changing crappie fishing. I caught a bunch of slab crappie out here in California last Saturday using the Lowrance HD5 version. Kind of takes the skill factor out of it. But then crappie is mainly fished for meat, not so much sport, so who cares?

Posted by tunacommander on March 29

I caught a nice 1.1 lbs last weekend and a few other smaller keepers. I’m hoping that this weekend will produce some nice slabs.

Posted by OvercupArcher on March 29

Seems like all the pictures on this site are on ponds. That Nate Herman must be going to the bank on that business.

Posted by tunacommander on March 29

actually the MO. Crappies were on a large private lake, the other two pics were on public central Illinois lakes open to all to enjoy, I don’t mind private ponds, in fact I wish I had one but 99% of my fishing and the pics posted on here are all public waters, most with access to small boats

I have a 14 footer that I bought for $500 18 years ago, doesn’t get any more common than that

Posted by Flatlander on March 29

Slayed the crappie today!!Buddy and I caught 36 out of a farm pond.Roadrunner with fire tiger power minnow caught 12,the rest wanted a minnow 3 feet deep.They were in no more than 4 feet deep.